So, by now we’ve all heard of the Amazon Kindle, now with its DX 9.7" Display, Graphite, 3G version and according to a report today on Techwatch , Amazon is at the moment selling 143 eBooks for every 100 hardback books. Certainly good news for the rain forest advocates!
And then there was iPad, selling 3.27 million units and counting…!
The Sony ereader has been around for a while now, though not getting too much publicity for its efforts. It has 3 versions on sale: Touch Edition, Reader Daily Edition and Pocket Edition.
Barnes & Noble, the world’s biggest bookseller recently decided that they too should enter the market and launched the Nook.
Borders, another major US book retailer launched the Kobo even before B&N launched the Nook and had to reduce their selling prices when the Nook came out. It has far less features than the Nook. It does not have Wifi, let alone 3G, only Bluetooth.

Then there’s the WePad guys from Germany who had to rebrand to WeTab due to some pressure from Apple.

Ever heard about The Skiff Reader, The Plastic Logic Que , Alex e-reader, the  Samsung e101, The iRiver Story, Edge from Entourage Systems, the Libre Pro, Bookeen’s Cybook Orizon, DMC WorldWide’s Ocean and Tidal readers, or even the JetBook? I must say, I have not heard of any of these until I started writing this post. See ZDNET for more on these new ones.

Anyway, the point that I’m trying to get to is not how happy I am that digital technology is progressing so well or that reading is getting cool again. Neither is it the fact that there will still be scope for good writers, authors and journalists. No!

It is my concern with fact that everyone of the major ereaders only allow for content specifically tailored to their platform.

No way can you read a Kindle book on your Nook or a Borders book on your WeTab. Sure, you can get the Kindle application for your iPad, but you must first have the Kindle, right? Surely Apple want you to buy iBooks.

This is where I get worried. I still recall ( yes, I’m that old) how I was asked at the video store whether I wanted to rent a VHS or Betamax video. Now all the betamax video machines are somewhere in Nigeria!

I have not heard the words "convergence" and "ebook readers" mentioned in the same sentence. Every ereader supplier makes his own arrangements with publishers or retailers ( unless owned by the retailer) and it seems that they are all moving further apart from each other.

Though I may have a mac and you a PC and though we may use different browsers, we can still view the same web sites. Same goes for buying a book at an airport shop or online ( the printed version) and being able to read it. Not so with the plethora of ereaders and their "books".

That electronic books ( if that is even a phrase that makes sense) are the future, or more specifically, the present is a fact. How this non-convergence will play out remains to be seen.

Next week I’ll be visiting the Cape Town Book Fair to see firtshand to what extent South African publishers and authors have embraced the ebook since my visit last year which was indeed disappointing in this regard.

This blog posting was written by Japie Swanepoel

The keynote address here at ad:tech Chicago was by Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo and Chief Innovation Officer at Publicis Groupe Media. It took the form of an interview by Drew Ianni of ad:tech. Rishad offered some outstanding advice and comments and below is my take / synopsis of his various comments and statements:

The top 3 aspects of digital Rishad considers worth noting:

• social
• mobility
• search

The issue with social is that it is relatively easy to scale the audience, but difficult to scale the marketing.

Both agency structure and client structures are not built for the future of marketing and needs to be changed.

One of Rishad’s biggest issues is that it is not about advertising but about marketing.

He referenced a recent study in terms of which all the various marketing and advertising channels were surveyed to measure its efficiency. Out of a scale of 100, TV scored 112. According to Rashid TV still works. Word of Mouth however scored 132. This is where social media comes in and where it can be utilized to market a company’s products and services.

He also believes that the single greatest thing a company can do to sell more is not advertising or marketing, but rather to have a  superior product or service or a niche market. This will get people talking and do more for your business than any marketing or advertising. He cited Google and Apple as good examples of companies that get people talking.

One of the major benefits of social media is the way it allows a brand to LISTEN to its clients and detractors. Focus on those detractors and their influence and not just on your fans.

Drew Iani and Rishad Tobaccowala

Google cuts staff as radio plan fails

http://tinyurl.com/cq5a7g

This just in from Andy Beal:

See how you can ruin your online reputation in just a couple of hours, courtesy of the Michael Phelps case study.

oh well, it seemed the print thing wasn’t going as well as planned. Not being content to be the world leader in online search, Google now wants to try its hand ( and what a hand it holds…) at radio ads.
See Clickz for the whole tune

Well, the world is really a global village they say.

I guess that not only applies to countries being intricately linked when it comes to both economical and political matters, but also industries.

If people loose money on investments and property they must spend less. If they spend less, sellers of products advertise less.

And yes, at the end of the day, Google is just an online publisher: selling ad space.

So, hearing of Google having to lay off people shouldn’t be any more surpising than Pepsi or BP doing the same.

10 000 jobs however? Now that’s HUGE

Read about the speculations on Webguild

YouTube Insight has helped millions of you learn more about your YouTube videos and figure out when, where, and why your videos are popular. But what if you could learn not just which of your videos are hot on the site, but which specific parts of those videos are hotter than others? What if you could know exactly when viewers tend to leave your videos, or which scenes within a video they watch again and again?

Well, in case you didn’t already know, YouTube now has an insight called “Hot Spots” that can help you with exactly this.

See Your YouTube Video: Hot or Not on Google’s blog.

On my way to work this morning I heard about him for the first time. Zakumi is the name of the official FIFA mascot for the 20101 Football in SA.

So of course my first “task” of the day was to see what Zakumi’s online presence and profile is like, keeping in mind that he was only “born” last night, 22 September. The name “Zakumi” is a composition of “ZA” standing for South Africa and “kumi”, which translates into “10″ in various languages across Africa.

Doing a Google search, I found Seattle Times to be # 1 in the results for .com and for pages from South Africa, coda.co.za was first. No PPC ads YET for either local or international search.

My next step was to see what www.zakumi.co.za/com looks like. I must say I was disappointed to arrive at FIFA.com. Yes, the homepage, not even a dediciated Zakumi page. They do in fact have a www.fifa.com/zakumi that features news and a slide show of the green leopard. Oh, wait, I see a video as well, let me have a look at it.

Well, it seems that FIFA does not like Mac’s…a pity. The message I get when clicking on the video link:
Sorry, FIFA.com videos cannot be viewed on a Mac OS.

Time to see what Zakumi’s social profile looks like online:

1. Youtube: 3 videos
2. Facebook: 6 different profiles / fan pages
3. Zoopy: nothing yet

So, all in all not bad for a baby that’s only about 12 hours old.

I am constantly amazed at the global fascination with Google. Sure they’re a well known brand ( #1? ) and sure they guys there are internet pioneers.

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Well that was my first reaction when I eagerly downloaded the new Google web browser and was greeted by this…

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